Chapter Thirteen
Abright light flashedover her face, and her eyes flew open as she sat up with a start.
A maid, in a crisp uniform, with brown hair coiled up tightly in a bun, shook the great, thick curtains and turned to her. “Mr. Blackstone has requested that you take your tea in your sitting room and wear the blue dress with navy ribbon. Mr. Mongrave shall escort you from the sitting room at half-past. Do you require assistance dressing, Miss Blanchet?”
“I...” Lina wiped the sleep from her eyes. “Well, no, I suppose not, but—”
“Good. Don’t dally, miss. It’s already late in the afternoon and I expect that you have been given some reprieve because of your long travels, but Mr. Blackstone does not approve of sleeping throughout the day. I’d move quickly, miss. Mr. Blackstone does not like tardiness. He considers it disrespectful.”
The maid, without another word, left, before Lina could pry her for information.
Tears began to well up in her eyes again, but Lina fought them off. If this Mr. Blackstone was so inclined to play games with her, she would not let it make her cry. But she hurried out of bed, because until she had a better understanding of exactly what Mr. Blackstone did when he found things disrespectful, she had better not stoke his ire.
She dressed, and as promised, was taken by Mr. Mongrave to tea in one of the many rooms of the enormous estate. Try as she might to make a mental map of the passages and corridors of the mansion, she could not; it seemed to her that they never walked the same way, nor a direct way, twice.
“You may explore the library and gardens until Mr. Blackstone calls for you,” Mongrave said, out of nowhere, when she had finished her tea. And then, like a puff of smoke, he was gone.
And Lina was left sitting quite alone in a great room with a door open to a library, and a door from there to the great gardens.
She walked through them for some time, trying to observe signs of someone occupying the house besides Mongrave or Blackstone, or the maid she had seen earlier. But no groundskeeper nor maid nor butler was to be seen, and at last she entered the library in resignation, where she read a book and waited for the return of Mongrave.
He came some time later, and escorted her to Mr. Blackstone.
* * *
The figure before thewindow of the room was still. Lina’s stomach felt as though it was being wrung like laundry, and she felt herself sway slightly. But she resolutely remained standing—she would not, like the ridiculous Evangeline, faint from fear.
Her eyes took a few quick, furtive glances about, trying to make sense of the objects around her. They fit into no category of furnishing she had ever known, and they were vaguely unsettling, in that same cool, fearful, and wicked way, but she was unable to recognize them and would have been even if she had stared.
The man turned around. His face was in the shadows, and Lina averted her eyes after a moment, so that it would not seem she was staring. “Miss Blanchet,” he said coolly, and the deep voice of Mr. Blackstone traveled through her like an elixir, warming and cooling parts her body as it did: her chest, the backs of her arms, her belly... and lower. She felt herself blush, and stared at the floor, with her neck burning.
Then, because he seemed to be waiting for a response, Lina gave a strange curtsy and stuttered, “Mr. Black...s...s...tone.”
“Sir,” he corrected quietly.
Lina’s eyes lifted quickly, from the floor to the shadowy face. Remembering what Charlotte had told her about him being a monster, she looked quickly above his head. “I... I...” she stuttered again.
“Mr. Blackstone, sir,” he said, each word scraping at the insides of her wildly beating heart, though she could not tell if the sensation was painful or pleasurable. Her neck burned hotter. “You will address me properly.”
Lina’s mouth was open, and words failed her. A sinking sensation was overtaking her, and in truth she did feel quite faint; perhaps Evangeline had the right idea, in the end, fainting when overwhelmed.
“I am waiting,” Mr. Blackstone prompted, when she said nothing.
“Mr. Blackstone,” she managed to say hoarsely. “Sir?”
He had an odd cane in his hands, which Lina noticed now only because he placed it in front of him, one hand over the other, atop the knobby end. He lifted it and gave a hard blow to the ground, making Lina jump. “That’s better. When you speak to me—and you will do so only when I say you may—you shall use the appropriate address. ‘Sir’ will do in this context. At other times I shall request that you call me ‘master’.”
Lina felt the queer sensation in her lower abdomen again. She sucked in her breath and lifted her eyes.
There was another, louder smash of the cane against the wood of the floor. “The first lesson you will learn, Miss Blanchet, is to keep your eyes on the floor unless you are told to keep your eyes somewhere else. Do you understand me?”
Lina did not, so her head was shaking as she said, quietly, “I... I... do not understand—”
“You will.” His voice interrupted her without him raising it, and an even icier chill traveled through Lina, though for some reason, it was strangely thrilling. Then, without warning, he yelled, “Doyle!”
The immense bookshelf swung open near the back corner of the room, making Lina look up in that direction. A man was entering the room, also curiously obscured by the shadows and the arrangement of the candles so that Lina could not make out his face. His figure was smaller than Mr. Blackstone’s, and his hair lighter.
Lina squinted into the glaring candles so arranged that his face was obscured. She did not care for being unable to see someone’s face.
